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Its passage may be assured when city council meets in special session on Friday, but a controversial bylaw that would ban masks at public demonstrations and require march organizers to provide authorities with a route for their event has already been rejected outright by one of Montreal’s the two municipal opposition parties.

“When it comes to these reviled vandals (who cause damage during demonstrations), police already have in existing laws all that’s needed to assumed their responsibilities as police and execute arrests,” Projet Montréal leader Richard Bergeron told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “In the light of what we’ve heard today ... Mayor Gérald Tremblay and Vision Montreal leader Louise Harel must withdraw this bylaw and cancel it.

“I always had my doubts about (the bylaw) ... my caucus and I are unanimous ... this is not the measure that should be taken in the hyper-emotional context in which we find ourselves.”

The bylaw in question would make it illegal for a mask to be worn at a public demonstration “without a valid reason” and could see marches cancelled if those in charge of them fail to provide police with a route.

Tremblay had announced in March that regulations that would better control demonstrations would be studied. The announcement came in the wake of the annual anti-police brutality march that saw more than 200 people arrested, several stores on Ste. Catherine St. damaged and a police squad car overturned and trashed.

It seemed at first the bylaw would not be voted on until the middle of June.

But when a series of smoke bombs were detonated in the métro last week, Tremblay announced the bylaw would be tabled and adopted by this Friday.

Bergeron made his comments as an afternoon of public comment on the law was held at city hall — two days after Vision Montreal convinced the Tremblay administration to hold them and 48 hours before the bylaw is scheduled to be adopted at a special meeting of council.

The nearly two dozen briefs submitted to the city’s public security committee were nearly unanimous in their condemnation of the bylaw in its present form.

Ligue des droits du Québec officials described the proposed bylaw as both “useless” and “dangerous” and told the commission that police already had sufficient powers to deal with agitators and vandals during public demonstrations.

Other presentations called upon Montreal police to do more to identify and arrest troublemakers during demonstrations.

Despite Projet Montréal’s opposition, Tremblay’s Union Montreal party possesses a comfortable majority in city council and could pass the bylaw even without the support of Vision Montreal.

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